there is nothing dumb about what Alex is doing. He's a world class athlete who knows himself well enough to have the confidence to do things that other people can't. It would be dumb for most other people to try and keep up with him, but I think he's got his shit straight.

yeah but accidents still happen no matter how good you get at climbing. seems kinda silly to me

Accidents happen in all kinds of climbing, no matter how good you get. The game is entirely about addressing a lot of the risk via skill and equipment, and not exceeding your idea of acceptable risk. The same personal evaluation process goes into top roping a route as soloing it at Honnold's level, even if the two seem like they have WILDLY divergent levels of risk.

If your on top of a route, anchor cleaned, roped coiled and your getting ready to do the walk off when a rock clips you and knocks you off the cliff, we should say that you got killed soloing? You weren't using a rope at that point in time and you were near a cliff.